


To Be Normal

by scribblemyname



Category: Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)
Genre: Catching Up, Chocolate Box Treat, Conversation, Friendship, Gen, Normalcy, Post-Canon, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 10:10:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5924514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/pseuds/scribblemyname
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ethan let Ilsa lead, subtly with cues, and found she’d brought him to a small, comfortable café where she proceeded to order tea for herself and coffee for him. It was comfortable, perhaps surprisingly so, but he couldn’t bring himself to find anything unexpected in it. Their easy companionship had come almost from the beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Be Normal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TLvop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TLvop/gifts).



Ethan leaned against the car, eyes taking in the old brick building and the view of hardwood through the windows on either side of the door, the woman closing up behind her.

“So how is it?” he asked conversationally.

Ilsa turned around, hand still on the lock. Her expression softened into a faint smile.

Ethan came forward as he gestured at the door—and the studio on the other side. “Being normal.”

“It has its good points.” Ilsa studied him with her usual quiet, observant way that seemed to take everything in and give little, if anything away.

“So dance,” he prodded.

He’d read the sign, looked in the window as she closed up her session with a dozen or so students. Ballroom dance. Those in intelligence gained far more marketable skills than one might think, enough to become anyone, as Ilsa had once said.

“Would you like a lesson in tango, Mr. Hunt?” she asked, arch amusement behind her tone.

He let his gaze come back from the building to her face, pushed back lightly. “Maybe I would.” 

She looked at him fondly, a faint hint of a smile at the corner of her lips and the slightest softening of her eyes.

Ethan smiled slowly. He barely tipped his head toward his shoulder, but she caught the request and walked with him. 

He let her lead, subtly with cues, and found she’d brought him to a small, comfortable café where she proceeded to order tea for herself and coffee for him. It was comfortable, perhaps surprisingly so, but he couldn’t bring himself to find anything unexpected in it. Their easy companionship had come almost from the beginning.

He let himself sip coffee and kept general tabs on the other patrons with his peripheral vision while primarily watching Ilsa sip her tea and keep her gaze fairly steady on him. He doubted she was less aware of everyone around them, maybe even knew some of them by name.

“It’s a small town.”

Ilsa shrugged lightly. “They develop loyalties. I was from a small town in England too.”

Ethan nodded. It made sense, in a way, though he always found it easier to disappear in a large city. He rubbed his thumb along the handle of his coffee cup as she watched, missing little with those knowing eyes, as he chewed over everything between them, between him and the work that he did. “How is it?” he asked. Being normal. Not being in the intelligence community anymore. Living in the heart of a small town instead of on the edge of danger.

Ilsa understood, as she always had, just what it was he was trying to say. “It’s good.”

He studied her long enough to let the answer sink into his bones and feel that she meant it. He nodded. “Good.”


End file.
